Aidan Kelleher

Professor Perisse

ENG 170-10

Argument Research Paper (Rough Draft)

14 April 2023

“I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them” (Wilde). On a factual basis, emotion is described as “a conscious mental reaction (such as anger or fear) subjectively experienced as strong feeling usually directed towards a specific object and typically accompanied by physiological and behavioral changes in the body”. In other words, emotions are a factor in every part of our lives. Emotions, whether they are under our control or not, are what make us human. But what happens when we cannot control them? Society as we’ve come to know it today has put rules and restrictions on what emotions should be expressed outwardly for the sake of everyone’s comfortability or even to keep our own pride intact. These rules can be different for men and women, and reactions that are acceptable for some may not be for others. But if we were to balance these differences, who would we find to be more emotional beings, men or women? Or perhaps, are men and women equally emotional?

Through my research, I now believe that men and women experience the same level of emotions because we are all human beings and the only instances that sex or gender interfere with that are in what emotions men and women feel comfortable or encouraged to express, and outside elements can cloud our judgment on that. The phrase “you’re being emotional” has been given a negative connotation connected to so-called negative emotions such as sadness, anger, and jealousy, but being emotional encompasses every emotion that humans have the ability to feel. Emotion is an internal feeling we get in response to something or someone, and men and women are just as likely to have that inward emotional response, the only difference is how we express our emotional response. And lastly, the word “emotional” is wired in our brains to make us think of women over men because the word is mostly used as an attack against women and is rarely used against a man displaying similar qualities.

“Emotional” also has a negative connotation that leads to the thought of the so-called “negative” emotions such as anger, sadness, fear, and hatred. But women are more likely to experience “positive” emotions such as empathy and love. According to “Sex differences in active tolerance, 1948” (Pierce), women are also more likely to experience anger when it is in response to unsympathetic treatment of others, meaning they have a higher degree of empathy than men. “Emotional” is rarely used to describe someone laughing hysterically or overwhelmed with love, but rather someone who is brutally angry or unbelievably jealous. But being emotional can encompass a variety of feelings that we as humans are capable of and to boil that range down to a select few that are seen as negative emotions brings shame to both the emotions and the word. This shame is what has led to people, especially men, not feeling comfortable discussing those more vulnerable emotions with the people around them out of fear. Even the men who pretend not to do this think that if they just suppress their feelings they can keep them under control, because we have been taught that the worst thing you can be is out of control.

Our emotions refer to the inward feelings that we have in response to a variety of events, and there is a difference between the emotions we feel and the emotions that we choose to express. In the opinion poll conducted on this subject (Google Forms), men and women in longterm romantic relationships with one another were asked if they think that men and women are equally emotional. More than half of the people tested believed that men and women are equally emotional. And those of the second largest group that believed women were in fact more emotional than men, their short answer responses told a slightly different story. Most of these respondents wrote that men and women feel the same levels of emotion, but that women feel more comfortable sharing their emotions in the right setting than the average man might. See, if the question was phrased a little bit differently, the result of the poll would likely have been a landslide in favor of men and women being equally emotional. According to “Sex differences in active tolerance, 1948” (Pierce), women are more likely to express their vulnerable feelings of love and fear than men.

The word “emotional” is often used more against women than men. I conducted a poll (Google Forms) asking my friends and family if they consider men and women equally emotional, and the majority of them said yes, but a large chunk of them had an interesting reason for saying that women are more emotional than men. The word “emotional” is often used to describe a woman who is “not in control of her emotions” and is experiencing sadness and getting upset, which led to many respondents of the poll reading that word and answering that women are in fact more emotional. But when several of those respondents were asked to explain their answers, it became clear that they were envisioning very few specific emotions, like sadness or anger, particularly in women. According to “The Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology, Sex Differences” (Lane), men are more likely to display rage than women dating all the way back to when men were hunter-gatherers and they had to be, while women are more nurturing because they had to be. We do not often describe a man screaming with rage as “being emotional”. So, the terminology itself is flawed and gendered. There is inherent sexism underneath all of this because “being emotional” implies a lack of control over your emotions, an insult that has mostly been levied at women rather than men who have gained a sense of pride over having control over their emotions by suppressing them.

Even though we are getting better as a society at realizing these things, there are still large numbers of people who would argue that women are the emotional ones that cannot control their feelings. But also, there are more progressive people that would still argue that men’s capacity for rage and women’s empathy and emotional intelligence could each tilt the scales.

Some of those on the other side of the argument would tell you that women are the more emotional gender by far not because of any stereotypical or misogynistic reason, but from the women themselves that take this notion with pride. But even though it is true that women have a higher tendency to display the so-called “positive emotions”, there is no data to back up that women feel any more love or joy than men internally. There is data to support that boys mature slower than girls in adolescence, and girls develop emotional intelligence faster (DeMichele), but this relates more to the processing of our feelings than a lack of feelings. Besides, we could argue about this topic forever whether men or women display more of every singular emotion, but that would be beside the point. What we are looking for is whether men or women are more emotional overall, gathering all of the emotions together to decide who is more likely to get swept up in their reaction to something, whether that is an external reaction or an internal battle.

The most intriguing opinion that the other side had on this topic was that men are the more emotional sex, as their capacity for angry outbursts and their lack of control over their emotions that society does not shame them for makes them more emotional than women. While this is very interesting and makes a good argument, this brings us back to our point about balancing the scales. Sure, the world is more accepting of men having angry outbursts without being seen as “unprofessional” or losing control because, in fact, it is their way of gaining control (Campbell). But this is balanced by the world’s discomfort with men’s tears and vulnerability.

Men and women are equally emotional because we as humans are the same, the world has only filtered what emotions we feel safe to display. The word “emotional” has been associated with unhappy emotions and has brought shame to our very natural human emotions and the way we experience them. Men and women both feel the same response to traumatic or joyful events and experiences, we just do not feel the same exact comfort levels with what we can show to the world. And the word emotional is also directed too often at women in a demeaning way and should either be embraced more or used against men who are acting emotionally as well. Before you feel uncomfortable with someone else’s emotional response to something or with displaying your own emotional response, ask yourself why that is, and you may find that the reason is much hollower than you thought.

Works Cited:

Campbell, Anne. Men, Women, and Aggression / Anne Campbell. BasicBooks, 1993. https://sunynew.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01SUNY_NEW/5celm9/alma990002413190204 844

DeMichele, Anna. “Sex differences in reading readiness”. Internet Archive, 1949 https://archive.org/details/sexdifferencesin00demi/page/n23/mode/2up

Google Forms, “Are men and women equally emotional?” Opinion Poll https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfwtWSXqWUa_9i7oUU92MJ2YOHQEciJ 9Vo-NAv4MTp6Vt3idA/viewform?usp=sf_link

Lane, Lara Lynn. “Sex Differences.” The Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology, edited by Bonnie Strickland, 2nd ed., Gale, 2001, pp. 577-578. Gale eBooks, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3406000581/GVRL?u=newpaltz&sid=bookmarkGVRL&xid=8d7ac363. Accessed 14 Apr. 2023. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3406000581/GVRL?u=newpaltz&sid=book mark-GVRL&xid=8d7ac363

Pierce, Frances Olee “Sex differences in active tolerance, 1948” Atlanta University School of Education, Master of Arts (MA) http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12322/cau.td:1948_pierce_frances_o

Wilde, Oscar “The Picture of Dorian Gray” https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Picture_of_Dorian_Gray/4Q1HAAAAYAA J?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PP5&printsec=frontcover